Our Family Journey

The Homestudy Saga Has Ended!!

At least I hope it has!! Maria and I went to the Lake on Sunday and spent a relaxing day on the beach and an evening alone at the cabin. We got up this morning and started our day by going to the Dickenson County Courthouse to pay the taxes on the cabin. After a brief stop at Fed Ex for an international airbill (something I would need later) and McDonald's, we were off to Frost MN to the adoption agency.

We arrived in Frost exactly at Noon as promised and thanks be to God received our homestudy as promised!! We didn't look back as we spun out of the parking lot on our way to the Secretary of State's Office in St. Paul Minnesota.

We got the document authenticated by the Secretary of State and returned home with enough time to get it to Fed Ex and off it went to Washington DC to be authenticated by the Guatemalan Consulate. With a 3 or 4 day turn around at the Consulate in Washington, my hopes are that it can be sent directly from the courier in Washington to Guatemala by the end of the week.

Maria was such a trooper today. She slept most of the way to Frost. She took a short nap on the way to St. Paul, although she spent most of her time bebopping to the Disney Channel in her carseat. She didn't fuss though, so that was great. After a few trips around the Capitol and walking up a gazillion steps (why do Capitols always have a gazillion steps??) and learning that the Secretary Of State's Office is no longer in the Capitol, but in a building just far enough away that you can't walk there, we found the right office. It didn't take too long and we were off with our authenticated homestudy!!

I had made some noodles the night before and I gave her the bowl of noodles as we left the parking lot. Maria loves noodles, hot, cold, semi cold, doesn't matter, if it's a noodle, she's all over it. She ate her noodles and her milk and then quietly fell asleep. She slept most of the way home. She didn't wake up until about 30 minutes from home. I stopped at the rest stop just outside of Brandon. I knew she needed a diaper change and if I didn't stop soon so would I!! It was then I saw the destruction of the carseat and the back of my car...I really don't know how many noodles she ate, because by the look of my seat and her car seat at least half of them are still there!! We took a much needed respite from the car and got cleaned up and called Daddy to tell him we would meet him at Marlin's in 15 minutes. We had a good meal, dropped our package at Fed Ex and now Maria and Daddy are sound asleep again!!

I'm sooo glad today is over and our homestudy is out of my hands and onto greener pastures. I hope it can be in Guatemala next weeek, so that our process for Flora can be started in earnest.